Wednesday, March 31, 2010

After a year’s setback and, for some scientists, several decades of hard work, the beams of protons first smashed together just after noon BST today. The collisions of smashed atomic particles on each beam is capable of generating an energy of 3.5 trillion electron volts, three times the previous record. This brings in a new insight and perception of how energy could be produced, in a highly efficient manner. The test is carried using Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world’s largest and highest-energy particle accelerator and the test area is located at the underground tunnel between the Swiss-French border in Geneva. The two proton beams began circulating ten days ago in opposite directions around a 17-mile (27km) tunnel. And only on the third attempts, scientists able to watch the event live from around the world described it as an “historic moment” marking the initial step towards addressing some of the deepest mysteries in physics.

Scientists are mimicking the conditions moments after the Big Bang and hope that the LHC will eventually find evidence for the existence of the Higgs boson. A particle that theoretically gives matter mass that has never been detected before. Giving new insights into the nature of the strong interaction and the evolution of matter in the early Universe.“We are going where nobody has been before. We have opened a new territory for physics,” said Oliver Buchmueller, a senior CERN scientist.

With so many cool sport cars and high-speed four wheels vehicles out there, could you ever imagine how many road accidents happen every year in Great Britain? In 2007 alone, according to statistical report from 230,905 reported casualties of all severities, 2,538 people were killed, 26,034 were seriously injured and 202,333 were slightly injured. Despite there has been a significant progress over the last three years on the statistical records, many road users, especially four wheels vehicle drivers, do not equipped their vehicles with relevant equipment to help them drive safely. Light Blue Optics is a holographic company that has carried out surveys against the odds of road accidents and the correlation with drivers’ eyes movement. And according to the surveys’ data, the time it takes for a driver to glance down at the instrument cluster is typically 0.777 seconds. It may not sound like long, but when driving at 60 mph, this equates to a distance of 20.8 metres drived without the driver’s eyes being on the road ahead. And the innovative solution from Light Blue Optics is called the Light Speed, a holographic projection that will keep drivers’ head-up to monitor the displays on the road lines and approaching objects on the road. This holographic projection has been tested and it does enhance road safety by helping drivers keep their eyes and their attention where they belong – on the road. The LightSpeed technology will provide vital information on speed, road warnings and GPS information and it will be displayed at an apparent distance of 2.5 meters from the driver’s eyes, meaning, a glance at your car’s glasses will give you enough information of the distance between your car and the one in front. On the rear mirror you would be able to monitor how close the driver or object nearby to your vehicle. LightSpeed display appears to be floating off the end of the vehicle’s bonnet, reducing the need for drivers to shift their focus from the road ahead.

A brief update, a Virtual Laser Keyboard (VKB) we have reviewed early second half last year is now available for sold. The Virtual Laser Keyboard is a revolutionary keyboard that operates in total darkness, by projecting bright light virtual keyboard on your desk or anywhere with flat surfaces. Nasa bought five of this, get one?

Wearing light in form of dresses, jackets or shoes has a magnetic effect on people, some love it, some hate it (maybe) but in any case, wearable light has the attention of everyone around. We have covered shoes with light elements using various technologies from no-brands to top-brands, it seems everyone is testing the segment to find out if shoe illumination is just for small kids shoe’s or is it a style element that fits into the high fashion market. London based fashion designer Jimmy Choo who made his name by creating gorgeous looking shoes for women including some of the most expensive high-end shoes in the market announced the launch of the Zap Sandal for the Spring/Summer 2010 season with ‘light up details’. Apparently the five-inch heels will light up at each step creating a firework when you hit the dance-floor with the Zap Sandals. This unique light feature does not come cheap, it’s in the top bracket of Jimmy Choo’s line with a suggested retail price of €1745.- which is around $2400.-We can not imagine this price point is only because of the light element, there is a considerable amount included going towards the prestige component of this sandals.

During discussions around wearable electronic a repeated topic is the usefulness or the lack thereof to integrate technical functions into clothing. While usually the debate of function into ‘every-days clothing’ is controversial and full of opinions there is one area where most can connect easily, seeing the benefits and usefulness of textile electronics, the medical area. Nobody likes to be in a situation where the life quality depends on medical devices to be carried, to be worn. Especially not if they look purely functional, shouting out to the world – here you see we're in need of medical aids. Leo Chao, student at Vancouver’s Emily Charr Institute is one of the creative/innovative designer who observe carefully the needs of certain groups of people and combine it with the possibilities wearable technologies offer. Leo’s concept: the Beagle Scarf, a garment co-created with autistic children and their parents. Beagle Scarf integrates sound, smell, and texture, making it a wearable and portable medical assistance device for Autistic children who suffer from a sensory disorder where they sometimes need to be blocked or stimulated from certain senses to feel relieved. Speakers integrated into the hood provide a soothing sound wrap around the child’s ears. Customized aroma patches and textured inner pockets provide another layer of aid, giving autistic children relieve in stress situations. The design of the Beagle Scarf is in from of a hooded scarf shaped like beagle ears. Worn either like a scarf wrapped around the neck or zipped up like a sleeves jacket, the scarf looks more like a cool fashion accessory than a medical aid. The beauty on this concept is the ease of how such medical clothing accessory could be actually commercialized. There would be no need for lengthy FDA approval and the involved eTextile technology is available.

We love the idea using clothing to record the daily life like whom we meet, where we have been, what we have done and so on. Collecting these memories on-the-go does not require attention from the wearer, it just happens. Laura Boffi, student at CIID Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design developed together with Mary Huang the Meet&Playback glove which records every time you meet a friend and shake hands or give hi5. The meeting and action will be stored as a music note. Later in the day the wearer can play back the gloves memory in a random melody form. Meet&Playback glove from laura boffi on Vimeo. The fingerless glove is fitted with two knitted capacitive sensors made from conductive yarn and one piezo sensor. The sensors are connected to an Arduino which is doing the musical memory conversion. A very attractive and inspirational twist for creating memory rich clothing.

Wearable technologies or smart textiles are of high interest among the medical community as these technologies promise to enable more accurate monitoring of patients while giving more dignity and convenience to the patients in form of discretely integrated sensors into clothing. Although wearable technology development has made significant steps towards this goal most of the technologies are still too immature to be used in the medical domain. TecInTex, a research program at Nano-Tera is one of the initiatives to find solutions to the present technological gaps by developing textile-based advanced (electrical or optical) fibers incorporating sensors, signal transmission or other active components based on nanotechnology. The expectation of this research program is to develop a family of ’sensorized’ and functional fibers, which will allow the measurement of body functions like continuous ECG monitoring and biological species in body proximity, approved fabrication processes and working prototypes dedicated for health care, rehabilitation and prevention.

We're lucky to live in a place with 200+ days of sunshine per year. If we're not out and about, the solar bag rests next to the window where sunshine comes in the whole afternoon, giving our cellphone and iPod a charge whenever needed. Now we've found a solar bag which has a use for the solar energy harvested other than charging personal devices – using the solar energy to heat up clothing. This innovative idea comes from the young designers Kim Jangwoon, Lee Youngmin, Jung Soonho and Namgung Mina having having mountaineers in mind who climb the highest mountains or hiking in polar areas. The rucksack or backpack is covered partly with solar panels which collect and convert solar energy into thermal energy and the generated heat is then evenly distributed to the user’s body via a circular patch on the clothing that remains attached with the backpack via a connecting pipe. This is the functional description to their Solar Rucksack design concept which also earned the Red Dot Design Concept 2009 award. We love the idea of using solar panel equipped backpacks not only for giving personal devices a charge but to connect to heated clothing for example. Storing the solar energy in a battery and then connect to a heated jacket, gloves or shoes would indeed be a great feature for adventurer exploring to cold parts of our world. For now the Solar Rucksack is only a design concept but we don’t see any technical reason why it could not be made into a commercial product anytime soon. Considering the premium price extreme mountaineering equipment has – the addition of a solar panel and a bit of battery storage would not put too much price pressure on it – especially if there is such a clear advantage as keeping warm during extreme adventures.

Definitive Technology presented its new loudspeakers. According to the company, Mythos XTR-50 is the thinnest high-performance home theater loudspeakers in the world. Their design allows you to install them on the wall next to your high-resolution TV. The 1.5-inch-thick loudspeakers not only look nice, but also add quality sound to your flat panel TV. Definitive Technology says that its new ultra-thin speakers are made using aircraft grade aluminum, which gives them a nice look and improves their durability. The loudspeakers are expected to appear at CEDIA Expo in Atlanta next week, costing about $ 700 per piece.

Muzatch, a US solar and digital communications technologies company, came up with this renewable energy charger for laptops. The device is called MZH-SP-6500 /SP-6000 and one of its main features is the smart adaptable technology that allows adjusting different voltage and electric currents. Besides laptops, the solar charger can be used to charge other portable devices, storing power on a built-in lithium ion battery that has a capacity of 12,000mAh. The smart charger also includes protection for over charge, over release, over current and short-circuits. Having one manual pressed key, the device offers a simpler and more convenient operation. Currently the MZH-SP-6500 /SP-6000 can be acquired from the company's homepage, where it is available for $ 149.95.

This device, dubbed Universal Gadget Wrist Charger, is a very convenient tool for charging your cell phone or portable gaming console. It is easy to carry around - all you have to do is attach it to your wrist like a wristwatch. The device features a 1500 mAh, 5.5V lithium ion battery. You connect the Wrist Charger to a device using a USB port. The list of handheld gadgets you can recharge using this device includes: iPhone, Nokia I (3.5mm), Nokia II (2mm), LG, Motoroloa, HTC, Dopod, Samsung i900 and Sony Ericsson mobile phones. You may also charge different portable gaming consoles, including the Sony PSP, NDS Lite and Nintendo DSi. There are four LED indicators that inform the wearer about the amount of energy remaining on the Wrist Charger. It is worth mentioning that the device weights only 82 grams and you can refill it using either a USB port or via an electrical outlet. You can purchase the Universal Gadget Wrist Charger from ThinkGeek for $ 34.99.

HTC announced about its first 4G handset, which is expected to hit the US market this summer, although no concrete date has be stated yet. Entitled HTC Evo 4G, the smartphone will be able to register speeds close to that of a landline broadband connection. The device will feature a whooping 8 megapixel shooter and a 1.3 megapixel camera for video chatting. Evo 4G is expected to work superfast without any lagging. This is because the Taiwanese company decided to install 512MB RAM. The handset will also include an HDMI-out port so it would be possible to play HD, 720p video on an HDTV. One more interesting feature is the ability of the phone to use the 4G signal as a Wi-Fi signal, which means that you can easily make your own small mobile hotspot, being able to link to up to 8 Wi-Fi-using devices (this includes the products competing to HTC's, such as iPhone and Droid). HTC's Evo 4G will run the company's already popular but revamped Sense UI interface. The HTC Evo 4G is expected to become the best android phone so far. Currently no information on the pricing is available.

The French designer Elodie Delassus decided to mix fashion and high-tech and designed this nice concept entitled HOLO2.0, which not only looks trendy but provides its user access to the Internet as well. One can wear the device around the wrist. HOLO is made using a special bioplastic material that is flexible, non-allergic and heat resistant, which means that it is suitable for each and everyone. The holographic gadget can vibrate, offering instant alerts. Currently no additional specifications of this portable computer/bracelet are available.

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

We stay in the textile music area with today’s article introducing ‘Undercover‘ a blanket containing a system of 24 wireless speakers for the ultimate and intimate music experience. Interaction Designer Dana Gordon loves to combine textiles with technology as her innovative portfolio of projects show. The ‘Undercover’ music blanket is designed not only to listen to music but also to let you feel it’s vibrations radiating from the speakers. We love the Undercover sound blanket concept but even more the design details Dana add to it. The concealment of the speakers with wireless module is beautiful (see image below) and the volume controls are adorable cute. The volume controllers are designed to suit a blanket’s natural cuddling behavior. The upper corners (‘the blanket’s ears’) control the volume. Pull the right one for higher volume and the left one for lower.

Yes, there is no engine installed on the Dragonfly DF1, but rather tiny hydrogen peroxide rockets at the tip of each blade. Reportedly, "it can stay aloft for 50 minutes and has a maximum speed of 40 mph."

The hydrogen peroxide rockets (the same things that power most jetpacks) produce no pollution and are supposed to be significantly more stable than their conventional counterparts due to the lack of, um, an engine.

There are times that it feels like all you really need is just a little quiet. If only you had it for an hour or two your worries would start to melt away and maybe that headache would subside finally. Well someone decided to create a gadget that will help block out certain types of noise or all of it altogether. Sure, it’s probably expensive, but it might be cheaper than an all out vacation every time you’re ready to snap. The Ecocoon has a few different modes that it uses. There’s the traffic mode that will filter out the peak frequencies. Then there’s office mode that takes out the mid-range and the offline which just kills all noise. The mid-range takes care of things like people talking away at their respective desks. It’s basically a really expensive version of earplugs. Well, it probably would be were it not still in the concept stage of its life.

Instead of leaving these balls of light attached to their tree-like fixture, you can pop them off of the tree. Then just lay them about the house wherever you could use a little bit of a soft glow to go along with your usual décor. You can turn all of the squishy balls on or just a couple at a time, just depending on how much light you need. It appears that the tree will give them a charge and when they’re fully charged can be plucked off and used elsewhere. They’re made out of soft silicone, so they’ll probably be alright if they roll off the table on occasion. The design was done for Julien Bergignat and have actually been picked up by a French manufacturer, but there’s no word on availability or pricing just yet.

As weather warms up again, it’s about time to drag out your flip flops. These flip flops from Teva are no ordinary sandals. They come with a set of LED lights strapped to the front. They’ll shine out brightly in front of you, ensuring you won’t step on anything. Don’t worry, for those times you don’t want to look like a complete dork, these can pop off and be attached to your keychain. This is one of those things that you don’t buy until you’re already very securely in a relationship. Otherwise, you’re probably going to repel the opposite sex with these sandals. On the bright side, at least you’ll be able to watch them running away from you, even when it’s pitch black out. The sandals will be available sometime this coming May and will cost you $60 per pair.

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

This concept project is one that we would love to see on any city street at night. The Intersection Signaletique uses special projectors from above to create messages on the streets, and its use is three-fold: advertisement, direction, and decoration. As advertisement, it could be quite effective. Just imagine walking home, and you are wicked thirsty. Then imagine the Coca-Cola logo under your feet. We don’t know about you, but we would probably stop by the nearest store and get a Coke for the way home. Granted, the streets would get pretty gaudy with multiple advertisements, but advertisers could boost the town’s economy by paying for “street space”. As for the directions, we would rather follow the signs from above than a map any day. Of course, these directions would be tough to see during the day. For cities that never sleep, like Las Vegas, this would be the next cool thing. We wonder if you could get it so the lights above could sync with your GPS or mobile phone, to give individual people the directions that they need. We guess the last usage, decoration, would be perfect for any holiday. Just picture boughs of holly being projected during Christmastime, turkeys at Thanksgiving, pumpkins on Halloween, and so on. Too bad this is only a concept for now. However, to implement this, you would have to affix these special lights to where the streetlights are, and the streetlights could outshine these Intersection Signaletique lights. Let’s work that out.

Twitter has announced it will soon be introducing @anywhere, a new tool for website developers. Instead of pesky API’s, this new @anywhere will be a few small lines of JavaScript, allowing users to tweet from their account, without ever leaving the website. Twitter announced partnerships with online companies including: Amazon, AdAge, Bing, Citysearch, Digg, eBay, The Huffington Post, Meebo, MSNBC.com, The New York Times, Salesforce.com, Yahoo!, and YouTube. These initial partnerships will all include the new @anywhere feature, when it launches. If you are watching a YouTube video, Twitter users will be able to tweet about the video they are watching, all without ever leaving YouTube. Users will also be able to follow a New York Times journalist right from their byline, and will even be able to share information about a product from eBay. Twitter is even asking JavaScript experts to help participating in building this new @anywhere, by joining @jointheflock.

Facebook has surpassed Google as the most visited site on the Internet for the week March 13th in the United States. This important milestone for Facebook shows that social connection and social media are truly outpacing traditional means of communication and connections. This was the first time that Facebook had beaten out Google for the entire week, according to Hitwise.com. Previously it had beaten Google out on certain days or even a weekend but it had never taken the rank of the most visited website for an entire week before. Does this mean that Google’s traffic is declining or that Facebook’s is increasing? The reality is that both sites are actually increasing traffic but Facebook is growing faster than Google at the current time. Although, an interesting fact is that Google’s own Page Rank is 10 while Facebook’s is only 9. Not a massive difference but when a higher page rank commands a higher pay to advertise, Google is still placing itself higher than Facebook. As Facebook continues to grow, it will eventually top Google for a month and then possibly an entire year. Although Facebook is winning the short term battle, Google will most likely win the longevity contest.

Today, Microsoft made available the Windows Phone 7 Series Emulator which allows those desperate to get their hands on the Phone OS, a preview into what the OS will be like. Long Zheng has been posting the features to his website in the form of summary videos that show off some of the available features. The emulator is primarily designed for testing your WP7S series applications, as it is a part of the Developer kit, but is an interesting look into the OS as it's not currently available to play with. The download weighs in at 75MB, and requires Windows 7 or Windows Vista to run. It's available now over at the Microsoft Download Center.

It doesn’t matter if you love the iPad or not, one thing for certain is that Steve Jobs built up the hype and we will all soon know if the product lived up to its stature. According to Daniel Tello, the iPad looks to have sold about 150,000 units in the first 72 hours. While this is speculation, he has shown to be reliably accurate in the past so there is some merit behind his analysis. The predicted sales are "based off of tracking order numbers submitted by volunteers at Investor Village's AAPL Sanity board". These sales in comparison to other launches (if accurate) dwarf those of the Nexus One at approximately 60,000 units but the iPhone 3G was able to hit 1 million sales in the first three days.The iPad has started a flurry of competitor tablets, while its unknown if HP kicked out the Slate at CES to beat Apple to the punch; other manufactures have begun to jump on the tablet based computer rush. While 2009 may have been the year of the netbook, 2010 may be the year of the tablet.

Monday, March 15, 2010

Kanjun Qiu created at the MIT Media Lab for the High-Low Tech research group the beautifully designed Soundie, a hoodie with touch sensitive areas triggering sound and light effects. The Soundie is Kanjun’s exploration into eTextiles and the LilyPad system. The result is the Soundie, one of the best demonstrator/prototypes I have come across in my restless search for wearable electronic developments. This project combines most to the eTextile elements and techniques, giving an excellent overview about the use of textile optimized components and technologies. The complexity of building the Soundie is medium as Kanjun has published a very detailed overview on Instructables. You will find every step carefully explained including a comprehensive material list starting with the LilyPad main board, power and light modules, conductive fabric and thread, a speaker module and a piece of clothing you want to upgrade with light and sound. The Instructables includes the Arduino source code to get you started quickly and to serve as basis for further hacking to your own liking. Kanjun’s motivation to create the Soundie was ‘… to inspire other applications. The Soundie was designed with purely artistic intentions and with absolutely no practical applications in mind.’

Device controlling bags have been around for a long time offering to those who got their hands-on experience with such bags a convenient way to operate the basics on cellphones, iPods and other MP3 player. The growing number of interactive backpack styles give choices for function and taste. The function of device control on bags is becoming mainstream adding another feature choice next to zippers, headphone cable eyelets, special audio pockets or water bottle compartment on our bags. This is of course good news for consumer as the days of incredible high premium prices for a audio control function are gone. UK fashion brand TOG24, already known for making cool looking winter jackets with audio control has some very affordable, techie looking backpacks in their collection like the Martel Music Backpack selling for £29.95 ($44.60). Remember, using this type of backpack with remote control and headphone port on the shoulder strap not only makes it convenient to quickly change songs, volume or pick up a call, it also gives an additional layer of protection to your precious little devices which can be kept safely inside the bag while operated via the bag.

Shannon Henry, owner of the Polymath Design Lab transformed a hand-sewn tulle wrap skirt into a star light sparkling evening gown by integrating fiber optics and lights that change color in response to the speed and direction of the wearer’s movement. At the center of the starlight skirt is a LilyPad which translates the motion sensors input into different colors of the stars placed throughout the skirt, creating a dynamic light pattern. The complete eTextile system is sewn on to the purple organza under-layer of the skirt parting nicely the technical part from it to allow a nice textile flow of the outer skirt but also diffuses, soften the light point a bit giving the magical effect. Although Shannon’s design is a bit more complex than the one we posted yesterday about, it still is stunning in it’s simplicity of making it but equally amazing, magical in the appearance and the effect a bit of textile illumination adds to clothing. A beautiful, sensual, magical use of textile illumination.

While researching for last weeks Soundie DIY article I found the Textile Synthesizer made by Jeannine Han and Dan Riley at the Swedish School of Textiles, a highly interesting concept that transforms clothing into a MIDI interface. Jeannine embed touch sensors, similar to the ones used in iPod and other touch screens into the textile. An AVR micro-controller with special touch-sensing code converts the hand gestures along the garment into musical commands for the music generator that actually produces the sound. The textile sensory area stretches from the neck to the waist area producing smooth values smooth over the entire range. This allows to create harp sounds, piano sounds, or almost any sound that has been done up to now in the music world. The textile synthesizer was designed by Jeannine for the ‘… traveling nomad who wishes to communicate with other nomads, sound is inspired by nature and reacts when someone comes close or touches the garment.’ Dan Riley, the technical wizard in this project, has already set this mind into finding ways to control the music better. The Textile Synthesizer garment can be seen at the Nordic Museum in Stockholm until June 2010.

Fashion design student Kristi Kuusk, currently studying at USP (University of São Paulo) is lighting up her creations – literally – by adding LED sparkle to a crocheted skirt. The twist on Kristi’s design: the sparkle comes only to life when the skirt and a ring come together. Her concept of ‘miracles start to happen when two separate parts come together‘ is made by using a magnetic switch. Each time the ring comes near the skirts magnetic counterpart the LEDs, symbolizing a snow flake, will give off it’s shine, imitating the snow’s shiny effect in the darkness. Aspiring fashion designer like Kristi and many others start to explore the options and possibilities electronic technologies have to offer to create new visual effects on clothing. Over many years, static materials have been used to add glimmer and glitter, to add contrast and eye caching effects on clothing. Electronic technologies will not take over the whole fashion world but they will find it’s valuable place next to other fashion decoration elements and techniques.

The Less Lamp is probably one of the only lamps in the world that needs to be broken to actually work. To get the lamp to work, individuals must smash it with a pick-hammer that comes included with the lamp. The pick allows light to shine through the lamp. A person can continue picking at the lamp with the hammer based on the amount of light they need. The lamp itself is solid and egg shaped and does not work until a person begins to shatter small holes into its surface (which is made of plaster). The Less Lamp is an innovative design concept that must be “broken” to release the light within. Users have control over the amount of light the lamp emits and also have control over the appearance of the lamp because they can poke the holes wherever they wish.

Brain controlled machine or computer? Intendix Brain-Computer Interface will let your convert your thought into computer system. In order to convert user’s brain wave, user must firstly wear the EEG cap that is connected to the attached PC. It was developed to anticipate the patient with locked-in syndrome or other disabilities to communicate with other. After wearing the connected EEG cap, you will be able to write texts, or let the computer speak the written text, print out the text or simply want to make a copy of the text and convert it into an e-mail or send the text via email. With ease to operate interface, the manufacturer believe any users with basic computer skill would be able to run the device in 10-15 minutes.

No info on availability date, but estimated you could own one for $12,250/.

Karlsruhe Institute of Technology has recently exposed their prototype lip-reading technology at CeBiT in Hanover. The lip-reading device is capable to recognize smallest electrical signals of facial muscles motion, especially when a person is taking a conversation, even without any syllables being spoken. The lip-reading system is called “silent communication” and uses nine electrodes on cables connected to the users face to measure the small electrical signals created by lip muscles. Naturally handicapped speakers could be benefited from this technology as it will amplifies the face muscles motion and translate them into signals and send them to a PC via Bluetooth. The PC will then decodes those signals and translate them into a synthesized voice. Professor Tanja Shultz told the BBC “I was taking the train and the person sitting next to me was constantly chatting and I thought ‘I need to change this“. This lip’s motion into synthesized voice technology is especially useful for noisy environment like the NASA’s Space Station or offshore drilling plant where communication could be done from lips motion into in-ear-headphones. The Lip-reading technology is still in prototype-phase, but believe, this is one of futuristic mobile communication mode in progress. Spying activities will be fascinating if 007 could do a speechless conversation with other secret agents!

The famous Taiwan-based computer company, Acer, has recently announced about its plans to launch a brand new ultra-thin notebook which will include a touch keyboard. The new device from Acer is expected to be without any frame around the display. The colors will be printed right onto the back of the display's glass substrate developed by Corning Incorporated, the world's leading company in terms of specialty glass and ceramics production. Featuring a touch keyboard, the expected notebook will be incredibly thin. (The image you see here is of another concept designed by Fujitsu.) Besides being thin and lightweight, the new notebook from Acer will also be less costly due to the fact that fewer materials will be used.

Sometimes it’s just tough remembering to be careful about all of your energy consumption. There are those that are naturally great at it, but unfortunately we’re just not all that way. Well if you’d like to force yourself to change your ways, then this is one way to do it. If nothing else you’ll start to think about it when you turn on your lights. Either that or you’ll learn to move your fingers out of the way really quick. With this it wouldn’t be so bad to turn off the light, it’s just going to sting a little bit when you turn them on. This was designed by a French designer, Josselin Zargouche. That does mean that you won’t be able to purchase this light switch rigged up like a mouse trap. You could always attempt to make your own though. Then you could put it in a room that you or your family have the tendency to turn on the lights too much within.

I’m one of the many who’s a bit notorious for just letting too much water go down the drain. It’s not that I mean to, it’s just when I’m half awake in the morning, I’m worried about water consumption. If you’re not ready for a device that just shuts off the water when you’ve used too much, then this Waterpebble is a nice happy medium. Instead it goes for a subtle approach. It has 3 different shades of lights, one is green, then there is red and yellow. You can pretty much guess which colors mean what. The red means you need to get your tail out of the shower, the yellow means you should speed things up a bit and the green means you’re in the clear. It sits right next to your drain and just keeps track of how much water goes down it. Right now this is a concept design by Paul Priestman.

For some reason strange mishaps tend to happen around us. We stumble over invisible objects and usually if someone is casually tossing anything, it will definitely come in contact with my head when we're not looking. Which means we're also one of those people that collides with others as we round the corners of buildings. Thankfully, it actually appears that we'ew not the only one. Especially since someone designed a gadget that is made to alert people of someone else’s presence before they collide. It does this by lighting up and beeping on the other side of the corner as you’re going around it. Then if you hear the beep you can slow down or somehow attempt to avert running into a complete stranger. Unfortunately, it’s a concept design. Plus, it’s unlikely that cities will spend the amount of cash it would take to get these installed on every single corner.

If you’re a major geek and are looking for a way to spruce up your living room, might we suggest the Tetris Chair thanks to Mexican industrial designer Gabriel Cañas? You must admit, it looks totally cool and your mind will probably be occupied with how all the pieces are going to fit together even when you’re sitting on it, sipping on a cup of hot mocha. Now this is the life, we do hope to see more and more 8-bit replicas in practical real life situations hit the market as there is always a sense of nostalgia attached to such items.

For those of you that have a smartphone of some kind, you might want a more convenient way to watch all of those videos. Sure, you could just hold onto it, but that’s not nearly as much fun. It’s much nicer to just kick back and pretend you’re back home sitting on your comfortable couch watching a movie on your TV. Well thankfully although this stand will make your phone look a little creepy, it’ll make it so that you can watch videos while you’re away from home in true comfort. These Spiderpodiums are extremely lightweight and are compact enough to slip into your pocket. It’s compatible with most compact handheld devices. That includes things like normal cellphones, smartphones, gaming systems, MP3 players, camcorders and even portable projectors. These aren’t out just yet, but they are available for pre-order. They’ll cost you £14.99 or about $23 and will be out on March 29th.

You shouldn’t be stuck only enjoying a light show from conventional lamps and strobe lights. Instead, you need one on your pillow. It’s the softest light show you’ll ever come in contact with. It might not be the pillow you choose while you’re trying to fall asleep at night, but the rest of the time the lights would be cool to have around. It is packed full of low energy LED lights. All of those lights are packed away inside of a zip-up compartment. Hopefully it won’t take away from the comfort factor. It cycles through colors and only requires a tap to flip on or off. It would work great for a subtle night light in a child’s room. Currently these are out of stock until the 3rd of May. At that time one of these will cost you £24.99 or about $38 through Thumbs Up UK.

Want to look like Spiderman, but instead of shooting out faux webbing from your wrists, you will be able to provide life saving energy for your gadgets? That is made possible thanks to the Universal Gadget Wrist Charger from ThinkGeek. This device will sit comfortably on your wrist, where you can plug it into just about any compatible electronic device, as it goes about powering a plethora of cellphones, MP3 players, portable gaming systems, and other devices which feature a mini USB port. Inside lies a rechargeable Lithium ion battery with a 1,500mAh rating, where it comes with four levels of power meter. Each $34.99 purchase ships with connectors for the iPhone, 2mm Nokia, 3.5mm Nokia, mini USB for Motorola, HTC, Dopod, MP3 and MP4 players, LG, Samsung i900, Sony Ericsson, Sony PSP, NDS Lite and Nintendo DSi.

Check out this interesting home ornament known as the City Light Globe that comes in the form of a 6″ revolving globe which displays the earth as well as all of its countries seen during the day, while those cities which are in the dark will light up in the same manner as that seem from orbit. The City Light Globe is located on a tilted base will revolve automatically in a slow manner, providing a 360-degree show of the world in two halves. The base measures 5.5″ by 0.75″, and tips the scales at almost a kg. You will need a 110v adapter to power its revolving mechanism, and this works best in the hands of those aged 14 and above. Bring home the City Light Globe for $49 a pop.

The ThinkPad Edge notebook that we'll be looking at today is part of an all-new series from Lenovo announced early this year at CES. The ThinkPad Edge blends some of the things we liked on the IdeaPad with the power and legacy of ThinkPads. Aimed at style- and budget-conscious business users, this system features some firsts from Lenovo, like a new keyboard layout and a low entry price for ThinkPads at just $579.

Entry level models come equipped with AMD Athlon Neo X2 processors, which can be upgraded to an Intel Core 2 Duo SU7300 processor. Our review unit uses the Intel CPU operating at 1.3 GHz along with an Intel GS45 chipset and 4500MHD integrated graphics. There's also 4GB of DDR3 memory, a 320GB hard drive spinning at 7200 RPM, Intel Centrino Advanced-N + WiMAX 6250 wireless, and a 13.3-inch LCD panel featuring a 1366 x 768 resolution.Lenovo sums up the look and feel of Edge in two words: sophisticated simplicity. Read on as we explore its features inside and out.

One of the key features of Microsoft's Windows Live Essentials suite is Writer. Writer gives bloggers the ability to post to their websites with ease. It supports Wordpress, Blogger, LiveJournal, TypePad, SharePoint, Community Server, and many other popular services. With Writer, you get an instant preview of what your post will look like, along with the ability to easily add photos and videos. It also lets you install plug-ins for added functionality. Today, Online Tech Tips' useful thing of the day involves Writer and how to bring it with you on the go. You see, to use writer, you have to install it as part of the Windows Live Essentials suite. However, this doesn't really help someone who jumps from computer to computer. Enter your USB flash drive. Here's how to set it up (NOTE: To do this, you must be on a computer that has Writer installed)

Download Windows Live Writer Portable

Extract it to your flash drive

In your flash drive, navigate to the folder called WindowsLiveWriterPortable (might be located in a folder called WLWPortable3, depending on how you extracted it)

Open WindowsLiveWriterPortable.exe

When a pop-up tells you that the file was not found, it will ask you if you want to copy you local installation of the program

Select YES

Navigate to the Windows Live > Writer folder

Click OK

Go back to your flash drive and run WindowsLiveWriterPortable.exe (it should now work on any computer)